


Through The Iron Gates Of Life

by whereismygarden



Category: The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic - Emily Croy Barker
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-09-09
Packaged: 2018-04-19 21:24:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4761563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whereismygarden/pseuds/whereismygarden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Let us...tear our pleasures with rough strife/ Through the iron gates of life/ Thus, though we cannot make our sun/ Stand still, yet we will make him run."</p><p>Nora goes back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through The Iron Gates Of Life

**Author's Note:**

> Post-canon fic for Nora's return. I'm sure when it happens in the sequel, the sexual tension will go yet unresolved, but. If any characters need "To His Coy Mistress" YELLED at them, it's these two.

It took Nora longer than she wanted it to take to find her way back. First of all, it was a daunting prospect to go up into the mountains to search for the door. Was Emmaline’s tethered ghost even still there? She had wished it free, that long-ago day, and there was no telling whether it still held open the passage.

But even when she got up her courage to go back into the mountains, there were practical concerns? She would have to learn a twinning spell to send messages back home. She would have to tell someone where she was going. Ramona wasn’t an acceptable sole confidante. She still called her mother every day. How could she disappear again, to do something as insane as return to the backwards land where she’d been married against her will, been a second-class citizen, _and_ been constantly placed in mortal peril? The hard rationality of it stood like a forbidding concrete wall in the face of the tender flowers of her ego and desires. She could make a better magician than English professor, maybe. Maybe not. She could find love, maybe. Maybe not.

The final problem was that she simply might not be able to go back. She took to wandering in the woods, searching for the deep awareness of water, stone, and wood all around her. Sometimes she thought she could feel it, but she could never cajole it, never get it to talk back to her.

~

She told her parents she was going away for a while, to try and find a friend who’d helped her when she was lost. Her father turned white and tried to forbid her. Cathy seemed concerned for her mental health. Her mother shook her head, saying Nora needed to put this behind her, with the help of God.

“You know, this wanting to go back could be a sign of emotional abuse,” Leigh said. “An attempt to placate the abuser’s anger.” She kept looking away from Nora’s ring.

“That’s not who I’m looking for,” she said. But it hardly mattered to her family: she could never invite them to visit her in that other land, and if she came back with someone as unbelievably arrogant and old-fashioned (for lack of a better term) as Aruendiel, they would jump to the wrong conclusions. If he would deign to come into this world at all. Maybe all of this was selfish longing for a place where she’d occasionally been useful and even necessary. Maybe she should count herself lucky that she hadn’t been trapped forever. What was she going back for? Magic? No one in this world needed it, and she didn’t either, even if she liked using it. Aruendiel? There were objectively better men, even if she was still having sex dreams about him from time to time, which was annoying.

She wondered about him frequently. Without Hirizjakinis to push and cajole him, had he slipped back into suicidally reckless behavior? Had they found Ilissa and Raclin yet? Had he, or Euren the Wolf, or Nansis Abora, or all of them, gone to hunt down the Kavareen? For her part, Nora had tried to find Micher Samle: every transliteration of his name she could conceive, every reference to things that sounded like they could come from that other world. She had even started reading fairy folklore, haunting the university library. She had bumped into Naomi once, who had seemed glad she was alive, if not regretful that she’d left the program. Her son could walk if she held his hand, now, which made Nora’s heart clench with one of those now-infrequent thoughts of her baby.

She had told no one about that, though when she’d gone back to the doctor, after gaining some weight, the woman had asked to do a gynecological exam. Nora had agreed, seized by a sudden practical worry that out of all the many sexual partners Raclin had had, he’d caught something from one of them and given it to her.

“You were pregnant,” the doctor said carefully, and Nora tried not to react, staring at the ceiling of the exam room.

“No shit,” she said finally, unable to keep the sharp edge out of her voice.

“It looks like you had a fairly traumatic miscarriage,” she continued. Nora closed her eyes: Moscelle and Vulpin whispering while she lay in bed after Ilissa had stormed out, the awful cramps, Aruendiel’s hands dark with blood at the foot of her bed.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She gave Nora some pamphlets and brochures for counseling of all types. Nora thought sourly that she had coped better in some ways in the other world, where people didn’t use terms like “spousal rape,” they simply said “poor girl” and didn’t want to talk about it, or make her talk about it. Oh, they had wanted to hear about the Faitoren, but the issues of her intimacies with Raclin were never discussed in the terms of twenty-first century America, and that had been good.

She had disappeared, she figured, at Midsummer. All her folklore readings suggested that was a day of power, of thinned barriers between worlds. She could go at the winter solstice as well, most likely, but she didn’t want to wait that long, talk herself out of it, and besides, she couldn’t disappear before Christmas.

The other days were the equinox and the two cross-quarter days before midwinter: she had been reading up on Neopaganism, trying to decide when her best bet would be, if any of the myriad traditions it drew on could offer a clue.

She decided on the equinox, because the Lammas feast day was too soon, and trying to stumble into another world on Halloween (or rather, Samhain, according to her reading) seemed like tempting fate. Magic as it was in that world was somewhat susceptible to the length of day, the positions of the stars, but she knew it was her own silliness that kept her from going on Halloween anyway.

~

She took a bus to the town, then walked to the cabin: she still had some of the muscle she’d acquired in that world, the endurance to walk for a long time. The same hill stretched up before her. She stuck her hand in her pocket: she was wearing several layers, in case she came out in winter, and a loose, rather sixties hippie skirt over leggings, for blending in. In her sweater pocket were a steel knife and a chunk of pure iron. She was coming out onto Faitoren land most likely, if she managed it, and she didn’t trust Vulpin, no matter how peaceable he’d been last time.

Nora took the same path as before, going up through aspens and ash, trying to feel for the presence of an open gateway. She tried to wander, knowing that it was getting lost that had let her through last time, but still her heart stopped in her chest when she saw the graveyard with its iron railings. There were still bits of the police tape on the railings.

Was she really going to do this? She wrapped her hand around the piece of iron and thought that with the new treaty, she should be able to come back any time to the graveyard, even through Vulpin’s lands. That is, if Ilissa hadn’t reasserted her power. Her knees felt weak. But she knew her own heart well enough now, and what it wanted was to go back. _She_ wanted to go back.

 _Two roads diverged in a yellow wood…_ What a cliché, and yet here she was, roads splitting worlds apart.

She could feel a difference here: the hum of trees and stone, the whisper of the air, stronger than she had ever felt before in this world. The sensation of a heavy distortion in the air, not a door but a fold that could be pushed back.

She pushed and walked through. It wasn’t like the path that had opened before: this was simple, no concentrated direction required. She walked out of the graveyard into mid spring wildlands: the Faitoren lands, without the glamour of buildings besides their brown huts, visible over a distant hill, but perhaps still with the glamour of weather. If she was right, Lucal’s lands lay to the south and west of here.

She had to stop and sink down to the grass, overwhelmed at how well she could feel the land. The air was bright, the presence of water in the far-off brook at the border was tangible, the earth and stone under her feet were reassuringly aware of her.

“Princess Nora!” She spun around, leaping to her feet, hand curling around her iron totem. It was Moscelle, blinking eight eyes at her and looking uncomfortable. “Nora, I’m glad to see you,” she said, in her sweet voice.

“I can’t really say the same, Moscelle,” Nora said slowly. “I don’t mean to trespass on your lands, I came through the graveyard and am heading to Lord Luklren’s land.”

“Look out that they don’t think you’re one of ours,” she said knowingly. “I won’t tell anyone I saw you.” She was picking flowers, dressed in a ragged but pretty enough blue smock. Nora wondered if she was happier like this, but she didn’t care too much, and she wanted to leave before she ran into anyone else. Moscelle’s appearance suggested Ilissa was still gone. That was good.

She hurried all the way to the brook, fording it via the same stones she had the first time, and by then, it was nearly evening. It was mid spring out in Luklren’s lands as well, the same temperature. There were sheep and cows grazing, and Nora tried to skirt droppings and watchful mothers with young calves alike.

It was a long way on foot, and it was nearly fully dark when she came to the village at Luklren’s keep. One of the villagers recognized her, though, squinting thoughtfully at her and tilting his head in a way that made her uncomfortable. She was considering levitating a piece of wood into the back of his head and bolting when he said “You’re the other wizard!”

“Oh! Yes, I am,” she said. “Could you escort me to the castle gates? I am not sure how best to greet Lord Luklren.”

Lord Luklren narrowed his one eye at her.

“Why are you seeking me and not Lord Aruendiel?” he asked. Nora indicated the direction she had come from.

“The path I took back to this world brought me onto Faitoren land. I have walked this way.”

“A long walk,” he said blandly. “I cannot spare you a horse tomorrow, to go to Aruendiel’s lands, but there are some folks heading to the market at Redtown tomorrow morning. You can accompany them, and then go back to his lands with his people.”

Nora nodded at him and enquired as to the state of the treaty and the Faitoren.

“Well enough. Our reparations arrive at a snail’s pace, but it is no worse than I expected. They are very compliant still. We keep a ready eye on them.”

Lady Nurkasa’s maid came to show her to a room, and Nora practiced conjuring lights from her candle for an hour or so, until she was tired despite her thrumming excitement, and fell asleep.

~

The ride to Redtown on a cart full of cheeses was bumpy and slow, and they’d left well before dawn, but not unpleasant. The woman holding the reins and her teenage son seemed to think Nora was somewhat fearsome, eyeing her incongruous clothes and shoes without question. For her part, Nora was still caught up in the heady sensation of the world around her. When they came to a particularly muddy patch of the road, she eased their way with a levitation spell, the mule pulling forward through the deep sludge with much less weight than usual to haul.

“That was lucky,” the woman said, and her son, who’d hopped out to push, scrambled back onto the cart, the front of his trousers spattered with dirt.

“Yes,” Nora agreed, secretly feeling proud of herself. She was rusty, but that hadn’t been so hard.

To her great pleasure, Morenin’s troublesome cousin Ferret was at Redtown, and he widened his eyes in shock when he saw her.

“Mistress Nora,” he said, sketching out a rough bow. Nora made a murky attempt at a curtsy. “I had heard you had returned to your own world.”

“I came back,” she said. “I need to get back to the village: is there anyone who could take me?” Ferret offered that she could ride behind him on his horse (legally acquired, he assured her) but she was out of practice riding, and detected that Ferret would be only too happy to have her grab his waist as they traveled. She demurred, and he pointed out that Cobbler was at market as well, and he’d come with a donkey cart.

He didn’t look too pleased to see her, but agreed that she was welcome to come back with him. They reached the village after dark, and Nora half-ran to the castle gates, deciding that she would greet Morenin tomorrow. She might be asleep by now, after all.

The small gate was closed but not yet locked, and Nora hauled the door open. She hardly needed for Mr. Toristel to tell Aruendiel she was here. She wasn’t a guest who needed a reception, though she would be happy to have some food: the bread and cheese from Lucal’s stores had been good, but she was hungry again. She was also very tired, but it still felt oddly like coming home to step into the courtyard. There was a once-familiar tug in her gut that told her that Aruendiel was here, and working some powerful magic. Some tightness inside her chest loosened with that knowledge. She opened her mouth to call out a greeting, but the door to the magician’s house opened before she could speak, and a familiar dark figure stalked out.

Aruendiel’s frame looked the same as ever: slightly askew with his limp, covered in his black cloak, angled forward with urgency. Nora felt a smile break over her face, and started towards him.

“Aruendiel,” she began, and felt some piece of magic that she couldn’t identify slide over her outstretched hand, tugging at her. She tried to shove it back, but she didn’t recognize what it was. It was an unpleasant sensation, like she was an orange and someone was trying to peel her. Aruendiel stopped shortly. They were only a few yards apart, Nora shuddering in the face of his spell.

“Mistress Nora,” he said, voice harsh. He looked unsettled, pale eyes slightly wider than usual.

“Who did you think it was?” she asked, considering the spell again. He calmed his face with visible effort.

“Perhaps some illusion,” he said finally. “Why are you back? It has been some five months since you departed for your own world.”

“I wanted to keep learning magic,” she said. The part of her that wanted to say ‘And I missed you’ quailed and went quiet in the cold, darkening courtyard. “I found the other pathway.”

“I see that,” he said, and stepped closer, taking her by the chin and doing his usual abrupt check of her nose and ears. “Well, come in.”

She didn’t need direction to the kitchen, and found some cold chicken pieces and cheese and ale to bring into the great hall. Aruendiel was sitting down, across from her usual place.

“I told Toristel and their daughter about my relation to them,” he said, as she chewed. Nora coughed a little.

“You did?”

“It would have been better said when Mrs. Toristel was still alive,” he said, looking into the fire. Nora took a sip from her cup.

“We don’t always get to say what we want to the dead,” she said. “Who keeps the house now?”

“Another woman from the village: a widow. She and Toristel seem to not mind each other. She doesn’t stay in their house, and leaves here in the afternoons.” Nora gathered that meant that he didn’t have a proper housekeeper anymore.

“How did Mr. Toristel and Lolona take it?” she asked.

“They were surprised. A bit angry, maybe, though they didn’t show it.” There was a bare trace of amusement or annoyance in his voice. “It doesn’t matter, really.”

“It matters that they know,” she insisted, finishing her food. He didn’t respond, just shifted on his seat, in a way that suggested he was stretching his back. He hadn’t said anything about being glad to see her, asked about how she had been since she went home. Maybe, she thought, he was angry that she had come back after he had finally figured out how to get rid of her. The thought that she was unwelcome in this world that she’d chosen over her own, by the man she’d chosen over all good sense, was sickening. She rolled her cup between her hands, suddenly afraid that she’d made a terrible mistake.

“Nora,” Aruendiel’s voice interrupted her internal near-panic. “Are you well?” His eyes looked slightly worried.

“I’m fine,” she said, and met his eyes and smiled at him, letting a hint of her affection show in her eyes. Something jumped up in her stomach at the way he looked back at her. She emptied her cup and reached across the table to take his right hand in her left. He gave her a strange, guarded look, but let her draw it over the table and bend her head over it.

The feeling of the cool, roughened skin on the back of his hand against her lips was almost shocking, as if after all the time they’d wasted it would be impossible to kiss him. But he was real enough, and she looked up to see his wide grey eyes staring back at her, unblinking and soft. He turned his hand over, squeezed hers gently, and then it was as if the carefully shored-up wall between them had shifted, and a few stones at the bottom had cracked. Nora felt the heavy, electric sensation of strong desire running from where their hands touched to the rest of her body. Aruendiel’s eyes on hers were fierce, almost glittering with intent. He leaned down and forward to return the kiss to the soft inside of her wrist; his lips felt far hotter than her skin.

Nora wasn’t sure which of them stood up first, if they didn’t stand together, but they were standing, a few feet from the table, swaying uneasily in the light of a few candles. Aruendiel’s hand was under her chin, his fingers holding it gently. Nora closed the gap between them, one hand reaching around his neck and into his hair, the other taking him by the upper arm.

She couldn’t really describe the way his mouth felt under hers, except perhaps _right_ , and she lost track of what exactly was happening for a moment, as one hand snaked into her loose hair and the other clamped down around her waist. Nora put both hands into his long, thick hair, directing his face to hers.

Aruendiel was a good kisser, though she hadn’t really expected him not to be. He paused at first, as if remembering what he was doing, but he seemed to recall quickly enough. He kissed with his lips and teeth foremost, quick, searing movements that meant Nora had to chase and hold him still to slide her tongue into his mouth. He thrilled and shivered when she did, though, and somehow she found herself leaning up against the wall of the great hall, Aruendiel bracing his weight on the stone.

She would definitely be lying if she said she hadn’t given a great deal of thought to having sex with him: she’d had precious little else to think about. She’d even gone out a few times, to determine if having sex with someone else would push him from her mind, but she hadn’t found anyone who caught her eye and held it. Aruendiel had his old reputation, but you had to keep in mind that this was a reputation gained in his world: one that didn’t take women’s agency or pleasure very seriously. For all that tension had hummed like a live wire between them, she couldn’t expect that to translate into perfection.

For now, though, Aruendiel’s mouth on hers was hot and welcoming and powerful, and it was nothing at all like kissing Raclin, which had always been a blur of ecstasy and want. No, she was powerfully aware of her body, individual sensations standing out like frozen frames: the heat of Aruendiel’s neck and the smooth strands of his hair under her hands, the sear of his hand on her cheek and the back of her head, the heat and heaviness of his body pressed to hers. She could feel his erection pressing slightly into her hip, and it was reassuringly real. It also made her throb with lust, and she drew her hands from his face to his chest and shoulders as they kissed. He was lean but still a big man, and hard with the kind of muscle that came from horse riding and fighting and a difficult, active life.

“Nora,” he rasped at her, when they paused for a moment. Nora touched her lips: they were prickling and a little painful after his attention with teeth, but in a good way. The kind of post-makeout feeling she hadn’t had since she was in undergrad.

“Your room,” she said. She half-expected him to start to demur, make some remark about her reputation as he sometimes had, but he just curled his mouth into a hungry smile and kissed her again.

Nora had never been in his room before, but she didn’t take in many details, because Aruendiel was trying to pull up her skirt and take off her sweater at the same time. The sweater went over her head, but he seemed to expect otherwise, or he was just really out of it, because he kept sliding his fingers over her sides, looking for a seam. Nora shrugged out of it, tugging it over her head, and grabbed at the outermost layer of his clothing as well. She had the advantage of understanding how this world’s clothing worked, for the most part.

Aruendiel made an exasperated sound at her skirt, and Nora stepped backward to the bed, pulling the zipper down and letting it drop to the floor, leaving her in black leggings and two shirts still. Aruendiel’s outer tunic was off, but he still had a blue shirt on, as well as his trousers.

“Your clothing is strange,” he remarked. Nora sat down on the bed and dragged him closer, and he climbed over her, eyes intent.

“It’s efficient. And it’s not strange in my world.” Aruendiel slid his hands underneath both of her shirts, rucking them up and pressing his mouth to her exposed skin. Nora shivered under his touch, trying to undo the ties of his shirt. He was quiet, not saying anything, but he was being gentle, his hands smoothing over her back, stumbling over the obstruction of her bra.

“More clothing?” he muttered, and Nora laughed a little, unhooking it herself and pulling the rest of her shirts over her head. He didn’t object to her aid, just settled himself between her thighs with a weight and reality that made her moan a little bit, push her hips up into his. He was still hard, and one of his long, rough hands closed over her breast as he leaned down to kiss her again, from mouth to neck to shoulder and down her arm.

Nora managed to get his shirt untied and then dragged it over his head, interrupting his attentions to her skin. It caught his long hair, and when she cleared the thick mess of black locks out of her eyes, she finally had a look at his arms and torso.

It wasn’t that she had forgotten the origin of his limp and crooked face, it was just that she had never thought much about how those injuries might extend to the rest of him. They were old scars, faded to white lines and patches against his pale skin, but they covered the length of his arms, crossed over his chest and stomach and shoulders. It was especially bad on his shoulders, where she could see the brutal mark that had set his left shoulder lower than his right. Nora put a hand on his side, feeling odd depressions and bumps in his ribs under the scars. Bone healed not quite perfectly. His spine, hips, legs, must be similar. His expression was still, watching hers, and turning guarded and aggressive with her silence. She swept her hand up to hold onto his shoulder. It wasn’t like the scars on _her_ body were pretty to look at.

“Is it—is this going to be painful for you?” she asked. Aruendiel made a hissing sound through his teeth.

“Everything is painful.” He sounded aggravated at the question. Well, it wasn’t like it was unreasonable to ask: she didn’t want to hurt him. Nora considered, undoing his belt and letting it slither to the floor. His fingers slid under the waistband of her leggings and underwear, and he tugged down, figuring it out. She put her hands firmly on his hips, waiting as he lifted himself off of her to finish disentangling her feet from her leggings.

“Like this,” she said, and pushed him as gently as possible onto his back. It still took effort, but he gave her an uneven smile as she positioned herself over him, grabbing her by the thighs. She was naked, and he was still in his trousers, so she set herself to opening them while he ran slow, light fingers up and down her thighs and sides, and over her feet. “That’s distracting,” she said, shivering as his thumb brushed over her nipple.

“Is it?” he asked, voice deep. She finally had his damned medieval trousers undone, and she dragged them down impatiently, scooting backwards down his legs. It was completely beyond her control that her tongue darted out to wet her upper lip at the sight of his stiff cock, but he noticed anyway and gave her a filthy look, smirking. Nora leaned down to kiss him again, needing to wipe the smug look off his face.

He rubbed his hands up her back, urging her to press close to him, and she did, feeling, all at once, the faintest rasp of his jaw against her face, the contained, fierce heat of his cock on her stomach, the uneven line of his left hip under her moving fingers. The kissing fell apart into harsh breathing against each other’s skin, and his hands on her hips, her sides, her breasts, her face, careful and strong and hungry. She met his eyes and felt her heart clench a little: the heat in his grey eyes was selfish interest in her, the same hunger that she felt shimmering over her skin where he touched her. She hoped her eyes conveyed the reciprocity of her interest, because scars and crooked bones notwithstanding, his dark hair and eyes and lean build made him physically attractive beyond her feelings for him. In the candlelight, with desire written over both of them, he looked like the man he’d been after the battle: beautiful, assured, powerful.

She kissed him again, gripping his hips, and shifted up a little, taking his cock in her hand. He made a quiet, urgent noise into her mouth, and slipped a hand between her legs. She couldn’t help but lean onto him as she slid him inside her, but he didn’t seem to mind. She got onto her knees anyway, bent over him, and moved slowly, while he trailed fingers through her hair and watched her face. He didn’t seem in a hurry, but she listened to his breath speed up, and felt his muscles tighten, and saw the lines of restraint appear at his eyes. She ground down harder, and his hips jerked under her.

“Aruendiel,” she said, wondering if he had gotten the wrong impression from her careful treatment of him, figuring out if he was in pain. Slow was good, but it wasn’t the only thing she liked, and they had found a kind of communion between them. He wasn’t in pain, Nora could tell. She gathered a handful of his hair, tugged at it gently, and switched to English. “’While thy willing soul transpires/ at every pore with instant fires,’” she growled down at him. He couldn’t understand, but he got the intent, and grabbed her hips as she pressed close, turning them. She put a leg around his waist, pulled him close, and he grabbed the bed on either side of her shoulders, levering himself up onto his arms.

Things fractured into the feel of her fingers curled around his upper arm and clenched in the sheets, his mouth brushing against hers, and the slow, inward-curling fire building with his every thrust. He was muttering something in Ors and she was still rusty, so she bit at his chest and rocked up into him, feeling the soft-coarse strands of his hair under her fingers. His right hand slid between her legs, fingers rubbing her into a mess of stuttering breaths and wild, half-stifled cries. Climax hit her like a wave from behind at the shore, a resounding chord that curled her feet and toes, shook her like a gale, and left her gasping his name and clawing at his shoulders.

The rhythm and fervency of Aruendiel’s movement was changing, and she tilted her head back to watch his face, which was a study in concentration and something intense enough to look like anguish. She ran her hands down his chest, his arms, and whispered her truth, that she’d come back for him as much as anything. She said it half in English, half in Ors, but looking at him, and he fell apart with a bitten-off moan that buzzed against her lips and his weight suddenly pressing her into the bed.

Nora nudged him when she not being able to take full breaths got annoying, and he shifted up and off of her, drawing his wilting erection out of her slowly. She bit her lip: she was going to be sore, but it had been a long time. Well, she didn’t want to think about why that was, and reached her right hand out to him, drawing him close to her. He looked sleepy, and she suppressed the urge to roll her eyes.

“Are you going to fall asleep on me?” she asked.

“Not on you,” he said seriously. There was a playful light in his eyes, hard to see in the candlelight but there.

“Well, I’m sleeping here too,” she said decisively. “Now that I’ve gone and really ruined my reputation, I might as well enjoy all the benefits.” She met his eyes, and he looked back evenly, not arguing.

“All the benefits?” he said, with an air of disinterest. Nora felt a surge of triumph, flavored with amusement. He was either fishing for compliments or wanted to say ‘was it good for you too?’

“I intend to fuck you senseless as often as practically possible,” she said, and he gave her a heated look. “That’s a benefit for you, too.”

“When you were leaving,” he said, which abruptly made things somewhat serious again, “I regretted not really ruining your reputation.” The admission, tinged though it was with the satisfaction of hindsight, plucked at her heart a little, as she thought of the two of them, in the snow, waiting to part. “And then I was glad we hadn’t gone to bed, because I wouldn’t have wanted to miss you after that.” Nora let a breath escape her in a gusty sigh.

“There’s no point in worrying about it now,” she said, and he turned onto his back, letting a gust of cold air waft over her. There was an audible crack: it wasn’t her, though she would need to stretch tomorrow. His back, then. “Do you need to do your transformation?”

“I haven’t yet tonight,” he said. Yes, then. He was being surprisingly considerate, for him. Maybe because they were still covered in each other’s sweat.

“Right,” she said. “We’re starting _Pride and Prejudice_ again tomorrow.” She also had a copy of the _Iliad_ , because why not? In translation: she wasn’t going to subject herself to Greek when she would have to work at Ors and English.

“You’re working on the Pasnvos Nen spell tomorrow,” he said, in his usual abrupt manner, and climbed out of bed. Nora shifted, gathering the blankets close and getting out of the wet area. He could sleep there, if he came back to bed rather than resting through the night as a bird. She heard the barest rustle, and turned her head to see a grey owl launch itself from the window. She didn’t close it behind him: he wouldn’t appreciate being locked out of his own room, and it wasn’t too cold.

She was back, and as long as the open gate remained safe within the Faitoren lands, she had a way to visit home. There was a small feather remaining on the pillow next to her: Nora traced it with her finger and smiled slightly. She wouldn’t need it before he returned, but as a gesture—a way to call him back—it was a meaningful one. Maybe there was a good choice of waking up with him after all.


End file.
